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Monday, 17 December 2007

Star of the Day. 'Salmon Gladdy'

The Canna blooming season is well under way in the Southern Hemisphere so to cheer up those Canna enthusiasts who are now in the grip of winter, I'll regularly share photos of those cannas that are looking particularly outstanding right now in my garden in south eastern Australia.

'Canna X 'Salmon Gladdy' is a recent hybrid created by Bernard Yorke of Queensland, Australia. For a couple of seasons Bernard was experimenting with using 'Red Stripe' and even Canna indica as seed parents and crossing them with pollen from various large flowered hybrids including 'Pretoria' and 'Wyoming' and others of his own sumptuous hybrids. The aim was to produce very tall growing cannas with spectacular foliage AND good large flowers. The result was his "Gladdy Series".

Most of the successes came from the 'Red Stripe' crosses but 'Salmon Gladdy' was an exception as its seed parent is surprisingly Canna indica and it is a very spectacular Canna. Bernard has now abandoned the use of C. indica as a parent as useful offspring were almost non-existent save for this one. I have not yet extricated the name of the pollen parent from Bernard. Perhaps he might post the answer in the comments section of this blog?

This hybrid is very tall with wonderful dusty, purple blushed, widely lanceolate foliage. Flowers are a delicate flesh apricot-pink, with picotee edges to the staminodes and about 7-8 cms (3-4") in diameter, held aloft of strong stems.

These tall foliage cannas are in great demand here in Australia. They are used to dress swimming pool surrounds in our warm temperate areas to impart that lush, tropical atmosphere. Cannas are far more accommodating than other tropicals in the range of climates in which they thrive.